


Quarantine

by Tyellas



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Cheedo ships them, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Post-Mad Max: Fury Road, Sickfic, angsty Max, blame that Vuvalini cough syrup again, thoughtful Furiosa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:11:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9979856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: There was a prompt: "Maxiosa where one of them has a cold." Furiosa's sick, and Max thinks it's his fault.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Splinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splinter/gifts).



It took a lot to get Max anywhere near the Citadel’s so-called Infirmary. What he’d heard had done it.

“She’s sick,” Max repeats. “Is it bad?”

Cheedo wriggles. “Maybe? Furiosa gets upper respiratory infections – she got hurt on the Fury Road and her chest cavity took the longest to heal – then she got sick in her lungs after Gastown that one time – she’s supposed to be quarantined, but…”

“It’s not lumps.” Max says this like it has to be true. (He doesn’t know if Cheedo knows they’re lovers. He’s never mentioned it to anyone, always expecting Furiosa to change her mind.)

Cheedo’s eyes widen in alarm. “Max, no! She’ll be okay, really she will. Melita says it’s not night fevers like the War Boys get. She’s only got to rest.”

Max’s mouth tilts. Cheedo half-smiles and looks down. “I know. Melita put her in quarantine so she couldn’t do anything else.”

Max can’t help but look around at how the Vuvalini, Melita and Gillian, have transformed the Citadel’s grisly flesh garage. It’s been whitewashed, made airy, given modesty drapes. Being there still sets ghosts at the edge of Max’s vision, makes his brain crackle. But hasn’t he already come back here for Furiosa once? In his mind, on the Fury Road, when he unwound a cannula tube and surrendered his own blood.

Max catches that Cheedo can’t help but look at a curtain at the back of the Infirmary: the quarantine zone. Max glances, abruptly, the other way. “What’s over there?”

Cheedo turns, all open curiosity. When she looks back, Max is gone.

He barrels past Citadel denizens with lumps, splinted limbs, and more, the thousand afflictions of the apocalypse. Sure enough, at the back is the quarantine niche, occupied by Furiosa alone.

She’s lying on a warped single cot, metal arm off but boots still on, pale save for flushed bars on her cheekbones. Her eyes are deep and glittering. “Max, you’re back,” she rasps, sounding pleased.

Max kneels down gingerly beside Furiosa. It’s taking her a moment to elbow herself up. He wraps a hand around the back of her head as she rises. Even as her skull weighs his hand, she reads his face. “Max, I’m not dying.” The sandy, deepened edge of her voice catches him. His ghosts recede - until she coughs. Max flinches at the hollow sound.

When Furiosa can speak, she says, “Stupid…thing. It has its use. Lets the Citadel see me as more War Boy than Immortan.” Max, who’s never seen her as either, stays silent. She repeats, “I’m not dying. Unless it’s of boredom.”

“Mmmm… could read?”

“I read what I need to. The Before-time books…” Furiosa’s mouth sets. She shakes her head. “I can’t look at them without hearing that old woman they used to have in the Vault. I’d rather just think.”

Max has been doing that himself. “You being here. ’S my fault. That time I…your lung…”

She’s startled before she smiles, wide and genuine. “Max. I’d been shanked in the ribs, thrown myself against the Gigahorse, beaten down Imperator Prime.” Furiosa still sounds satisfied about that one. “You saved me after all that.”

She says this like it’s that simple. Max’s old cannula scar throbs against his throat. He forces out, “Hurt you to do it.”

Furiosa doesn’t deny this. “One thing I was thinking, in here…everything worth doing hurts.”

Max can’t tell her how wise and tough and true she is. The right way to say it will escape from his brain’s shadows months from now, while he drives or changes a tire. For now, he leans and kisses her, slow and tender. He starts light, brushing his mouth to hers. She can pull away with ease. She might. But her lips are as rough and compelling as her voice, and they open for him, make him welcome. This moment, after the fear of losing her, feels like hope. Her forgiving, living mouth is redemption.

When she needs to breathe deeper, Furiosa draws back. She stays face to face with Max: sits up further, curves her forehead into his. Her skin is too warm, but the living weight of her as she leans makes Max relax at last. As her fingers begin to caress the back of his head, he hears a curtain raked back and an exasperated huff.

They both turn to the small door. There’s Melita, the old Vuvalini’s faded red hair fairly bristling. “How’d you get in here?”

Max makes one of his noises.

Melita clicks her tongue. “We don’t know what it is she keeps getting - "

Furiosa, her flush intensified, rasps in protest. “I’m right here!”

“But we don’t want it spreading. So, after that performance, fool, you’re in for the duration. You don’t leave until Furiosa does.”

Max starts. “’M quarantined too?”

But Melita was already leaving. “Cheedo! Get one of the boys and update the rations list. While your back was turned, young lady…” She pulled the heavy curtain shut behind her.

“Didn’t mean to get her in trouble.” Instead, from the Infirmary, Max hears a delighted girlish shriek. If Cheedo didn’t know he and Furiosa were lovers, she does now. Max feels his own face going hot. To Furiosa, he mutters, “Hope, mmm, you won’t get bored.”

Furiosa half-coughs, but her dimples are back. “Not anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt courtesy of Splinter, and it came when I needed some inspiration, so, received with much appreciation!
> 
> If you want to see more coughing, thoughtful, quarantined Furiosa, have another story in my 'verse: [Why I'll Never Go Back to the Thunderdome](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5043835). This time it's Toast who comes to visit, and Furiosa tries her rough best at mentoring another woman.


End file.
